The 2-mile stretch of Prospect that begins near Atwood Stadium and stretches northwest into the city ranks among the worst for arsons.

Last year alone it was home to 12 suspicious fires of vacant homes, the second-highest of any street in Flint in 2012, according to an MLive-Flint Journal analysis of Flint Fire Department records.

Four burned out foundations scar the block of Prospect between Dupont and Woodbridge streets where only two homes appear occupied and the rest are boarded up or empty.

Roosevelt Miller was home last summer when two vacant houses next to him were set on fire, spreading flames to his roof.

“When the fire department came, they just sprayed my house down and let (the other two) burn.”

Miller, 75, who has lived in a tidy home with a well-kept yard at Prospect and Woodbridge for nearly 20 years with his wife Judy, said Prospect looked far different when they bought the home from former Flint Mayor Harry Cull.

Cull's son, Kenneth, 54, said the street used to be alive with playing children.

“There were tons of kids in the neighborhood,” said Cull, who now lives in Arkansas. “It was just the type of neighborhood you would imagine when you say ‘middle class neighborhood.’”

Cull, whose father died in 2000, said he took a drive through the old neighborhood during a return to Flint a couple of years ago.

Prospect Street arson and crimeBethany Hostetler, a resident of Prospect Street, and her sister Christina Brackins, talk about the crime that the vacant homes on her street bring to the area in which she lives.

“It seemed like every other house was boarded up,” he said. “When we lived there, you really didn’t have to lock your doors. Now everybody has bars on their windows.”

While Prospect Street suffered from a dozen fires last year, it had only seven total over the previous four years, the analysis of Flint Fire Department records showed.

All told the city reported 352 suspicious fires last year and 1,631 in the last five years.

“Certain areas just seem to draw more arson than other areas,” said retired Flint fire Battalion Chief Andy Graves.

Miller recalls a far different neighborhood from the one he sees now.

“It was beautiful – this area all along here,” Miller said. “The last five years it’s went down.”

His wife worries for their safety with all the abandoned and burned-out houses around the corner, but Roosevelt shrugs it off.

“I told my wife there ain’t no use in starting over on a new house,” he said. “I’d like to move, but where you going to move?”